Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2023 Mar 6:12:4.
doi: 10.12703/r/12-4. eCollection 2023.

Recent advances in graft-versus-host disease

Aisling M Flinn  1   2 , Andrew R Gennery  1   2
Affiliations
Review

Recent advances in graft-versus-host disease

Aisling M Flinn et al. Fac Rev. .

Abstract

Acute and chronic graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) continue to present a significant challenge to physicians, accounting for considerable haematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT)-related morbidity and mortality, particularly those patients with steroid-refractory disease. In this review, we discuss recent advances in understanding the underlying pathophysiology, prevention and management of acute and chronic GVHD. Barriers to progress include the difficulty in obtaining high-quality evidence with sufficient patient numbers to identify optimal preventative and treatment strategies, with the heterogeneity of multiple patient, donor, graft and transplant-related factors, in addition to limited availability of human tissue to study the underlying pathophysiology, particularly in steroid-refractory disease. Continued collaborative efforts to improve our understanding of the pathophysiology involved, particularly in steroid-refractory disease, identification of biomarkers to permit risk stratification, and further well-designed randomised clinical trials are essential to help physicians determine optimal GVHD preventative and treatment strategies for each individual patient.

Keywords: Acute graft-versus-host disease; chronic graft-versus-host disease.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.Dr Holtan receives research funding from Incyte and Vitrac Therapeutics. She provides clinical trial adjudication services for CSL Behring.No competing interests were disclosed.

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Cordes S, Mokhtari Z, Bartosova M, et al. : Endothelial damage and dysfunction in acute graft-versus-host disease. Haematologica. 2021; 106(8): 2147–60. 10.3324/haematol.2020.253716 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Krenger W, Holländer GA: The immunopathology of thymic GVHD. Semin Immunopathol. 2008; 30(4): 439–56. 10.1007/s00281-008-0131-6 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Zeiser R, Blazar BR: Acute Graft-versus-Host Disease - Biologic Process, Prevention, and Therapy. N Engl J Med. 2017; 377(22): 2167–79. 10.1056/NEJMra1609337 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Shao L, Pan S, Zhang QP, et al. : An Essential Role of Innate Lymphoid Cells in the Pathophysiology of Graft-vs.-Host Disease. Front Immunol. 2019; 10: 1233. 10.3389/fimmu.2019.01233 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Whangbo JS, Antin JH, Koreth J: The role of regulatory T cells in graft-versus-host disease management. Expert Rev Hematol. 2020; 13(2): 141–54. 10.1080/17474086.2020.1709436 - DOI - PubMed

Grants and funding

The authors declare that no grants were involved in supporting this work. AMF was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research.

LinkOut - more resources